Starling Darling
by iox
Summary: "This Android was little more than a piece of string tied to a cloud carrying ten lorries, twenty-two pianos and an elephant overtop a glass figurine. This plane of existence was somehow both the cloud and the glass figurine, but She made it work." a self-indulgent character study of the Tardis, if the Tardis was an android-angel piece of string. Basically nonsense.


What a time; what a body. A body, humanoid as the humans called it, as is common for most creatures. Two appendages underneath, two above, a container inside for the main fleshy bits, and a container on top to hold the console part. Of course, she could get into specifics - she knew many things from the number of electrons inside the average olfactory nerve (her favourite nerve, she knew spacetime but to smell? she envied those with the funny triangles called a nose) to the boiling point of the hallux, but it was quicker for those who communicated via the little parcels of meanings to just go with the simpler, and shorter, of meanings. Either that, or she was picking up cues from her thief.

Language; so complicated, so restrictive. As was this body. As was her current amount of control over the said body. What was happening again?

"So what can you do now Doctor? You're trapped, and I have the last TARDIS under my control!"

Ah, yes. Faintly amusing, but the sight of her timelord - almost hanging by his wrists, nearly completely off the floor - added a bit of a damper on things. As did the fact she could see. Seeing might as well be universal (something that can't be said about smelling, to her disgruntlement) with every creature being able to see, or compensate blindness with something else. We all needed to know what is around us and using light is usually the best way for that. All creatures had eyes - it seemed, for now, she was a creature too. Shame she couldn't change the view.

"Up, darling!" Oh, she was moving, at this time. She knew this. It was time. Was she still disgruntled? Yes, so not that time. Time, time. Her internal clock was broken, she felt it tick steady. It was unsettling. Feet - solid, but not flesh solid; clanking, so metal then, shining white. Silver? Yes. Pretty. She was sitting down, holding her foot in her hands, analyzing the sleek style, pretty triangle planes - Wait no, she was standing, so not now-now, the now that would come after this. A later. Or was it already later, and this was a sooner? Why was it so confusing? She was tied between being utterly confused and understanding completely. Something rattled, and it was coming from behind her.

A behind, how fascinating! She wasn't used to a behind, or an in front. Just inside and outside. There were the doors to the outside and doors to the inside, and walls to the inside and walls to the outside. Inside time, outside time, inside space outside space. To exist you must always be inside-outside. Language was a silly idea; there would never be enough words for words are time and time is always and now.

"Aim." Ooh, more movement, on the outside. But more impactful was the movement of the Inside, where she felt herself settle slightly, connect, link, earth. Data, rewired. Like new words linking to meanings through other words in the memory of creatures with brains. Did she have a brain now? The data poked at her, made her acknowledge the uncontrolled thoughts. It slightly hurt, the poking. She poked back, and an image projected itself against her thoughts, of the Metal Man stealing the timelords screwdriver (she had to remake them occasionally, and Her Thief manually stored all of its details in her databank, like she wouldn't have done that anyway) and the Metal Man slipped it into his pocket. She looked over her pointing hand (she didn't know hands could do that on their own, but she also didn't know what oil smelt like until today, so maybe it was just a missing data yottabyte like that?) looking to the pocket of the Metal Man in front of her. Metal Pockets? Interesting.

Oh her head, she moved it! And her eyes! She thanked the poking data which, pacified, fell into place at the back of her head. She wondered what was in the back of her head, because she couldn't quite feel it like she could in her old body. Her old body! Old and new, the time had changed her but she couldn't understand the space in between. Something poked her again, to keep her on track, but she thought she could be excused from the rambling considering all the New inside her. A second passed. That was what it was, had been rudely poking her, and insulted she brought the second back again, looping it. How dare it poke at her unprompted? It was hard, like pulling a rope while in water. But she was Herself, a nameless child of time, though by a child of Gallifrey, TARDIS was a decent and fairly accurate identifier. Anyway, she shook her head and pulled on that rope with the strength of a supernova. She felt it click, time pausing, and then gently push her over with the force of two supernovas in concern. It was the equivalent of a sniffling puppy looking up at its master for TimeSpace, and of a gentle tap on the shoulder for the TARDIS. The Old Tardis that was, and for the new bipedal Tardis, it was the equivalent of a hug; a hug with the floor, and the ground kissed her nose producing the purest discomfort she had ever felt.

At that point in time, where she laid prostrate, several things happened. The TARDIS watched as a fixed point in time unravelled in front of her. She physically watched nothing, as the defence mechanism of tears blinded her in the Now, but another thing happened. In her wonderful yet mechanical nose, The Pain - for that is what it was, the purest program of pain she had ever known, - was a catalyst for one of the last major connections between Her Old and New body to be made. An in-case-of-catastrophic-malfunction automated system had slowly been working to fix what they could of some of her difficulties, and with its last movement, She started to understand. She Saw and she Thought and she exited the water with grace; it wasn't the expanse of space, but it was still much easier to pull on that rope of SpaceTime, to look at it as She Was Meant to, and she Observed.

She observed the Now of her Arrival upon the planet of Tweezer, the Now of Him and his Encounter with the Natives and the Non-Native Metalmen, the Now of the odd shell they placed around Her, and The Now of the Her observation, The Now of the escape. But, she couldn't see the Now of the transference between her Box-body and Android-body. Interference, she assumed, but missing data meant she couldn't fully connect the Puzzle.

Time poked her again, and a second passed. She was ever so confused, but then she Observed observing her future self observing her future self -(she quickly cancelled out the recursive echo fault)- and she more or less then Understood, was Understanding, will Understand? That her Android body had many faults, the largest of which was the chains to SpaceTime. It couldn't directly Be SpaceTime as her Box-self was, merely channel it, in a disgustingly pathetic linear form. But channel it from where? Was her consciousness somehow safely held within the Android? She scanned herself - luckily the Android had been programmed with a self-analysing system for manual error analysis - and, No. Her Heart, Her Conscious, was not within this body. But, what this body was she found - a cage. A channelling-cage which was like a valve in a heart; one way bleeding of what she was. And what she was, was stuck here. She patted Time back as it edged forwards, keeping it still. In the simplest of terms as is required by the simplest of communication, Words, This Android was little more than a piece of string tied to a cloud carrying ten lorries, twenty-two pianos and an elephant overtop a glass figurine. This plane of existence was somehow both the cloud and the glass figurine, but She made it work. The ten lorries, twenty-two pianos and an elephant of her Box-self was hanging in the balance, but after some tentative testing of the String/Heart Valve/channel between both Selves, she deemed it relatively stable. Pretty Relatively. Relative to what?

Time nudged her again, and she allowed it to pass. And at that point in time, more things had yet to happen while the fixed points unravelled, observations were observed and realisations where realised. Her aiming hand fired. It had Fired Down, where down was to the centre of the current planetary mass. Rest in peace, little planet, as she had established in her self-analysing that this android was also a weapon as well as a heart valve/string. It could channel any amount of her self-sustaining energy from her Box-Self, and also repurpose it. It would reach the centre of the planet and rip it to shreds in little less than a few hours. She was a little embarrassed, but it was actually a pretty big planet and it wasn't like she put it much energy. In fact, it was very little, she didn't realise she was aiming! She could absolutely rip this planet to shreds in a few seconds if she actually tried. Of course, that was Wrong and more importantly, Her Thief would get upset, so she supposed the longer the better.

Her Thief. She quickly stood to walk, then her stabilisation failed and really she still couldn't see through her tears (they weren't that effective at protecting her as they were supposed to be, she thought.) and she fell straight down. She hoped it was more graceful this time, being a touch more prepared than the shock TimeSpace gave her, but she wasn't too hopeful. She let go of her grip on time and moaned - Vocalisation! How exciting; just like the Now of Idris. That always would be fun. Had been fun. The TARDIS, still disgruntled she admitted honestly to herself, would probably have to get a better grip on how the non-time creatures experienced time, with this exploration into the Linear Experience (TM, she dryly added). She never understood the use of being linear creatures, but most were fairly determined to be so. At least the TimeLords Tried to explore a bit.

"Hey old girl, that you?" Ah! Her TimeLord, bless his soul. Words, words to reply? For him, it was the beginning of the conversation, so...

"Good Afternoon," wait no, that was the beginning of another conversation. How Wonderful! She would have many nows of Conversation. She had and there were many Conversations. She was looking forward to it, she reminisced. "When you're confused." She explained. Maybe. Wait, baby paradox, he was confused because she said he was confused. They ticked, and she liked them. Very easy to deal with and smooth over. SpaceTime hiccups for a TARDIS. Easy peasy time trouble, unlike speaking.

"Darling, what are you doing on the floor." Oh, pesky programming from the Android, biting at her at the use of the pet name from the Metalman. It urged her to respond, but while she couldn't quite eradicate it just yet, she pushed it down and glared at her current antagonist. Who, she presumed, had made this body to hold her. Who in the space-time continuum did he think he was? She felt Her Pilots laughter; she could almost hear him say 'Tardis Tantrum' and she spared a gentle glare over to him. She rolled her ball jointed wrists and something made the things behind her rattle again.

Oh yes, she remembered them from her analysis. Oh yes! Even better than a fully functioning nose; Wings! She assumed their main purpose was regulation - a way of making her body the same size as a slightly shorter-than-average timelord (timelady? it was a fairly androgynous body) while still having the room to do as the Android was meant to; channelling the Tardis, refocusing (though failing) it into a weapon. Without access to TimeLord technology of manipulating dimensional space, she supposed it was the next best thing. They had a nifty perception filter over them - in fact, over all of her as she now noticed. A strong one; she most likely appeared like a perfectly average biological creature.

She flexed those wonderful flexible limbs - good limbs to have, providing you had two. Poor Unavions. Can't do much with just one. Of course, she couldn't do much with two - they had their hand in the floor's and her's relationship, she assumed. She missed her outside-flat-floor. So much more stable than feet.

"Darling?" she supposed that must be the androids name that she was residing in. It bit at her fiercely to respond. Not bothering to even sit up, let alone stand up and fall again, she got more comfortable and moved her new arms like a pillow to comfort the head. Heads are so oddly shaped, not a circle but not-not a circle either. The only word for it was Head-Shaped, which was truly unspecific and fueled her casual hatred at language. This Android really liked to think in words, and she was dragged along for the ride. And it really wanted to speak, so at a stronger bite from Darling, she let it.

"There is resistance from the TARDIS heart, Dr Flower." Darlings voice - purely mechanical, no thought or conscious other than how it dragged on hers - echoed in the deserted train station. A late 34th century one, the Tardis noted from the back of Her mind. Darling's mind?

Dr Flower huh? Darling's Doctor, she categorised. Her own Doctor cheered at the news of Her Resistance, until he was rudely punched in the stomach. Well, that wouldn't do, would it? Usually, she had to trust him to get out of such situations, and she still did and knew he could get out of this by himself, but she was so offended at their plan to get Her - Her! - to hurt The Doctor. She had the chance to aid Her Doctor in a more physical way; she turned her head towards the Metalman.

He was related somehow to the Cybermen; she took aim with a shuddering hand and the knowledge of what she could do flooded her mind from Darling. An EMP? She thanked the machine, which she knew obeyed her second only to Darling's Doctor - but the Dr Flower had yet to close any of the loopholes that allowed the Tardis to Injure the Cyberman.

Until this point, the Doctor had been distracting the other less important doctor with familiar rambling and a trade of snippy chatting. But at the sound of Her metal ratting, the Flower Metalman turned back round. "Darling?" he questioned, and She felt the android rouse to attention but She pushed Darling back down.

"Try again in another time, Darlings not here in the present." The Tardis said, trying to echo how she had heard it said in a movie. Will hear it say? It sounded cool as the Doctor watched it. She was a TARDIS-angel-android anything would sound cool from her, surely. Eh. She fired.

That was a pretty good example of a linear event. Witty Line - firing - the collapse of the awful mess of steel and alien metals. Getting the hang of this, she was! That being said, with the light inside Doctor Flower powering down, she felt herself draining. Her head was once again cushioned be her awkwardly placed arms as the Heart Valve of the android's body closed over her, Trapping her within her paralysed Box. Well. At least the Doctor would have fun getting out of this conundrum. She just hoped the Android String didn't break; and that she would regain her consciousness once more. She was still disgruntled.


End file.
